Stay on target

Scientists are hard at work on materials made of a new type of material known as a hydra-gel. Many creatures are adaptable and flexible. They allow us to handle shock and adapt to changing environments. You might say it’s one of the main innovations of evolutionary biology. And, for good reason, scientists have started taking cues from nature to create their own synthetic hydra-gel. These would allow flexible backbones (also known as substrates) for electronics, robots, and even batteries.

The problem, until now, has been that these gels are hard to bind together. You can’t screw two fleshy masses together to make a totally new object. I mean I guess that’s how babies are made, but get your mind out of the gutter.

Anyway, new bonding agents were needed — ones that moves and flexes with materials so that it doesn’t get loose and just fall off with use. Standard superglues creates brittle layers that can flake off (I mean that is, how I’m sure all of us have gotten superglue off our hands at one point or another, just scraping that crap off). But that’s not good enough for fancy-schmancy researchers.

So they did some cool chemistry, taking the cyanoacrylate compounds that make up super glue, and then diluting them with a non-solvent. This allows scientists to lay down thin layers. When the two surfaces that you’re trying to stick together come into close contact after that, the fluid fills in the spaces and gaps, carrying the glue into the surfaces and binding them together as the fluid evaporates. That only works because the added non-solvent keeps the flue liquid just long enough for all this cool-ass physics to go down.

The result is an incredibly tough bond. With it, you can stretch the gel by more than ten times without coming apart. Even better? The glue is tougher than the gels themselves — even with the toughest stuff we have.

Science has a video that explains the whole process, and it’s truly incredible. With it, researchers were also able to create a basic, squishy skin for new electronics. Cool, yeah?